CLIH Cross border Issues

8 www.canadianlawyermag.com/inhouse GC PROFILE DESPITE STARTING his legal career the day before 9/11 at a firm with many technology clients amid the dot-com implosion, Yonni Fushman was not deterred. He left the Boston-based corporate firm to work at a litigation boutique in his home city of San Diego, where he honed his advocacy skills before moving to Toronto in 2005 to join the legal team at Aecon Group Inc. Fushman steadily climbed the ranks within the legal division of the Canadian infrastructure development and construction company, earning the title of chief legal officer in 2017. He now wears multiple hats — most recently taking on the addition role of chief sustainability officer in August 2020. In this role, he collaborates with many different departments. "I would say sustainability is probably the most interesting and exciting area for me. It is partly a legal issue in terms of governance, reporting and disclosure, partly business strategy, and partly financial," says Fushman. He also links the issue of sustainability to investor relations, communications and operations. Since taking on his new role, Fushman has spearheaded two sustainability reports, reporting against two frameworks: the "Sustainability Accounting Standards Board" and the "Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures." "We are now the only construction company in Canada to not only report on our greenhouse gas emissions, but to have set emissions targets for 2030 and 2050," says Fushman. Aecon aims to achieve a 30 per cent reduction of CO2 emission by 2030 and net-zero by 2050. The focus is now on operationalizing sustain- ability by changing methods, materials and equipment to produce less carbon. In Fush- man's view, this approach gives Aecon a competitive advantage and distinguishes the organization with clients by focusing on an important emerging issue. "It's also kind of a rallying cry for our employees who are increasingly interested in seeing their employer live their values," he says. The second sustainability report, released in 2021, revealed that Aecon completed its first diversity and inclusion census, which will help benchmark ongoing progress in dismantling barriers between talented people of all backgrounds and oppor- tunities, enterprise-wide. Fushman says Aecon has always had a robust ethical culture. The legal team developed a rigorous ethics program to strengthen this culture further, initiated by associate general counsel Martina Doyle. Honing in on sustainability and ethics Yonni Fushman focuses on critical issues to drive business and strengthen the culture at Aecon Group "All of us were in the storm together, working harder than we ever had, but really rowing together in perfect sync — everyone communicating well, totally aligned to the goal of supporting our front-line construction workers."

• Cover